


for old times' sake

by lacrimalis



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Edgar Swansea's Unprofessional Fascination with Vampires, First Meetings, M/M, Period-Typical Opium Abuse, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Set in 1908
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28842963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacrimalis/pseuds/lacrimalis
Summary: "Do you not think he will kill you where you stand?" Jonathan asks.Edgar allows himself a private smile. "Funny you should mention it—I asked him once what he would do if I were a vampire. He said he would give me an hour, for old times' sake."
Relationships: Carl Eldritch & Geoffrey McCullum, Geoffrey McCullum/Edgar Swansea
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	for old times' sake

“Thought you said not to come out to the West End,” Geoffrey grumbles.

“Alone,” Carl corrects in pointed rebuke. He adjusts Geoffrey’s arm slung over his shoulder and tightens his arm around Geoffrey’s waist. Geoffrey groans at the way it jostles his injuries. “And we’re not going in far. Got a contact near the edge of the neighborhood. Keep up, lad.”

Geoffrey huffs, but he doesn’t have the breath to keep whinging. He’s in rough shape, and Carl wouldn’t be yanking him so hurriedly down the dark streets of London if the situation weren’t dire. He’d been careless—and the fact that Carl isn’t wasting his breath lecturing Geoffrey for it says a lot more about the danger Geoffrey’s injuries pose than any grim prognosis possibly could.

Geoffrey jerks wildly at the sound of three rattling, clamorous bangs. He doesn’t need to blink the blur from his eyes to see they’re standing before a door. It’s a dark red wood. Mahogany, maybe. When had they gotten here?

Carl knocks again, bashing ceaselessly on the trembling door. The plummy voice of a man calls from inside, assuring his late-night visitors he’ll be there shortly. Carl quits knocking then—only to kick the door violently with a boot, eliciting a cry of anxious indignation from within.

Geoffrey huffs weakly in amusement.

The door swings wide just as Geoffrey’s vision clears, enough to see who greets them: a disheveled, dark-haired man in sleep clothes frowns at them from behind askew glasses, squinting into the darkness and brandishing a glowing candlestick. “What the devil is—oh!” Credit where it’s due, the English dandy doesn’t just stand agog. In fact he assesses the situation with uncanny quickness, stepping aside before even Carl’s bull-headed impatience can bowl the man over.

Geoffrey stumbles on the threshold, hissing at the pressure the misstep puts on his knee.

“This way, Mister Eldritch,” says the stranger in a clipped and authoritative tone.

In a whirlwind of pain and disorientation, tugged along by Carl’s hold after the glow of the stranger’s candle, Geoffrey finds himself sitting atop a desk in a cramped little study. He looks around the room, dazed. Hardly a thing can be seen in the dark, but the scant candlelight glints off bookshelves filled to bursting and illuminates the curved edges of curios tucked into the corners of the room.

“You might have told me you meant to take me up on my offer, Mister Eldritch,” the stranger says tersely. He pushes Geoffrey’s coat from his shoulders and sets to work on the buttons of his shirt. Geoffrey slaps the man’s impertinent hands—damp, and tacky, like he’s just washed them with carbolic soap—and the man slaps back so sharply that Geoffrey’s arms fall limply to his sides in shock. He watches in mute compliance as the stranger makes quick work of the rest of his buttons. “I would have prepared a proper operating theater.”

Carl scoffs rudely. “As if I’d accept the hospitality of your bloody Brotherhood under ordinary circumstances.”

Geoffrey groans as his shirt is ripped away from the tacky, weeping claw wound spanning his right flank. “Yes, well, considering neither of us has the privilege of _living_ under ordinary circumstances, and considering we have arrived here _anyway,_ it would be nice to know if you’re going to make this a habit.”

“Hey,” Geoffrey mutters, made irritable by the fresh sting of cold air on his weeping wound. “Who the fuck are you?”

The stranger balls up Geoffrey’s shirt and presses it to the claw wound, which, _ow—_ but Geoffrey somehow manages to apply pressure when the man guides Geoffrey's hand to lay upon the wad of cloth.

“Bring me my medical bag, Mister Eldritch,” the stranger instructs absently, waving a hand already wet with Geoffrey’s blood toward a corner of the room. Then he meets Geoffrey’s eyes, brown and bright in the candlelight. “Doctor Edgar Swansea, at your service. And what’s your name?”

“G’ffrey,” Geoffrey mumbles, swaying faintly, and Edgar slaps a bloody hand on Geoffrey’s shoulder to steady him.

"Well, don’t you worry, Geoffrey. We'll get you fixed up in a jiffy."

Geoffrey thinks the man's optimism is laughable. If Geoffrey does anything in a _jiffy,_ it'll be bleeding out all over the good doctor's desk.

A black leather bag thumps down beside Geoffrey’s thigh.

"Thank you, Mister Eldritch," Doctor Swansea says curtly. "I'll need a bit more light than this to work by."

Carl scowls and curses under his breath, but nevertheless grabs the candlestick and waves it about like he's trying to chase the darkness from the room, lighting candles as he goes.

Doctor Swansea runs his hands, blood wiped away at some point, down Geoffrey’s neck. Geoffrey shivers, his hackles rising at the touch. "No bite marks," the doctor observes. "That’s good; the only blood you’ve lost is probably just what’s on your clothes, then...”

Geoffrey frowns. The specificity of this observation strikes him as strange, but before Geoffrey can spend too much time wondering about it the man grips his jaw with all the dispassionate force of a pair of metal forceps, forcing his mouth open. “Did you get any blood in your mouth?”

“No,” Geoffrey tries to say, though it comes out as something completely unintelligible. Doctor Swansea seems to understand regardless, the furrow of deep concern in his brow softening to something with less dire urgency, and he releases Geoffrey’s face.

“Good,” Swansea says, and he uncaps a dark bottle of pungent antiseptic. “Now let me see that scratch, if you please.”

Geoffrey winces as he lifts his blood-soaked shirt away from the wound. Swansea wets a rag from his medical bag with the antiseptic and swipes it over the four jagged cuts, and Geoffrey shouts into his gritted teeth at the fierce, burning sting. 

“Steady on, my boy,” Swansea murmurs, and Geoffrey clings to the sound of the man’s voice through the torrent of his own blood rushing in his ears. Swansea turns his head to the side and snaps, “Mister Eldritch, if you’re going to breathe down my neck like a vampire yourself, I must insist that you leave!”

Geoffrey laughs weakly as Swansea leans in to wrap Geoffrey’s abdomen with clean bandages, his arms encircling Geoffrey in a morbidly clinical embrace. The man smells faintly of carbolic soap and peppermint, a foppish potpourri barely detectable past the iron miasma of Geoffrey’s own blood miring his senses.

“There, I’d say that’s the worst of it,” Swansea sighs. “Any other major injuries you’re aware of?”

Geoffrey blinks blearily. “Hit my head. Ribs,” he adds, but Swansea is already guiding him by the neck into a half bow and spider-crawling his fingertips through Geoffrey’s hair.

“Are you experiencing any dizziness? Nausea?”

“A little.” Swansea touches a spot of slick tenderness on the back of Geoffrey’s head, and Geoffrey hisses. Swansea dabs the antiseptic cloth carefully on the lump, making a sound of clinical observation when he’s done.

“It’s not bleeding any more. A minor concussion,” Swansea decides. “Straighten up—you said your ribs? Where?”

Geoffrey gestures toward the afflicted area. Swansea presses his fingertips into Geoffrey’s chest, eliciting a pained groan despite his careful touch.

“You’re in luck, Geoffrey. If it _is_ broken, it’ll heal just fine on its own. Any trouble breathing?” Swansea produces a stethoscope from within the depths of his medical bag and puts the ear tips in his ears, buffing the metal end on a clear patch of his sleep shirt. “Deep breaths, now.”

Geoffrey breathes deeply, and his ribs twinge. “Hurts,” he complains.

“Quiet,” Swansea chides softly, and he presses the metal end of the stethoscope to Geoffrey’s chest. Geoffrey expects it to be freezing, but evidently Swansea scrubbed it on his shirt for a reason, because it’s not bad at all. Swansea lifts and repositions the stethoscope several times, a faint, thoughtful furrow in his brow as he listens to Geoffrey breathe. His arms encircle Geoffrey again to place the stethoscope gently along either side of his spine. Swansea’s soft, sleep-mussed hair tickles Geoffrey’s nose.

Swansea moves away and takes the stethoscope with him. “It hurts because you have either a small, transverse rib fracture or a rather nasty bruise, and when your lungs expand it stretches your ribcage. Lucky for us, your breathing sounds fine, so hurting seems to be all it’s doing. Well—nothing opiates can’t fix!”

Geoffrey’s body feels like a living bruise. Painkillers sound pretty good right about now.

“Now, I don’t normally keep a _pharmacy_ in my medical bag,” Edgar says pointedly, raising a faultfinding eyebrow at Carl’s brooding bulk against the far wall. “But fortunately for us, I anticipated the necessity.” So saying, he produces a corked bottle of amber glass which rattles cheerily as he reads the label, and in short order a chalky white tablet sits in Geoffrey’s open hand.

“Of course, in the absence of _advanced notice,_ I can’t promise I will always be so prepared...”

Carl grunts. “All right, you bloody arse, I fucking heard you the first time.”

Geoffrey isn’t in the habit of accepting strange medicine from strange men. But he’s in a lot of pain, and Carl may not have briefed him on what to expect in Swansea’s home, but he also _brought_ him here, so for all that Carl clearly dislikes Swansea he also seems to trust him—inasmuch as Carl Eldritch can trust anyone, nevermind a medical professional.

Geoffrey swallows the pill dry with a grimace.

“In the meantime,” Swansea says as if Carl hasn’t spoken, “is there anything else I can do for you, Geoffrey?”

Geoffrey considers the question. “Think I twisted my knee.”

“Hm.” Swansea carefully manipulates the joint, poking and prodding and watching Geoffrey’s face for signs of pain and discomfort. “It’s swollen. You might have dislocated it. I’ve a walking aid you can use, if you’ll give me a moment to fetch it—” And Swansea swans from the room, ostensibly in search of just such a thing.

“Carl,” says Geoffrey, “what in God’s name.”

Carl grunts unhappily, scratching his beard. “How much’ve I told you about the Brotherhood of St. Paul’s Stole?” he asks.

“What, the leech lovers?” Geoffrey asks dubiously. Suddenly he feels uncomfortably exposed in the warm candle glow of the doctor’s cramped study. He’d put his shirt back on, but it’s little more than a wet red lump in his fist, now. “Has he got a leech wife lurking about?”

“If he does, he’s about to be a widower,” Carl grumbles, and so saying he pulls his sword from his belt with a wary eye on the door. “Met him the other night, saved his sorry arse from a Skal. Said he’d take house calls, in exchange for...”

Carl’s unhappy grimace has Geoffrey’s own gut responding with a sympathetic pit of dread. He hasn’t lived this long under Carl’s tutelage by ignoring the man’s intuition.

“For what?” Judging by Carl’s grim countenance, he’s sure his mentor is about to say the price of the doctor’s services will be blood or eternal servitude. But Carl would sooner let Geoffrey die than consign him to a fate worse than death, so it couldn’t be that.

“He wants information about vampires,” Carl says with resigned disgust.

Geoffrey frowns, picking at the edge of his bandages. It’s a good job. Better than any of the back-alley sawbones Carl usually takes him to. “Is that all?” Geoffrey asks. The opiates are kicking in, and in the face of his vanishing pain Carl’s objection seems absurd. “Thought you were gonna say he charges an arm and a leg.”

“Believe me, lad. You’ll be wishing that were the case.”

It is with this pronouncement that Doctor Swansea sweeps back into the room, looking much more composed after having changed out of his bloodied sleep shirt and donned a velvet smoking jacket. His eyes land in unmistakable recognition on the sword in Carl’s hand, and his smile doesn’t even falter. He sets a folded shirt and a wooden cane beside Geoffrey’s thigh, opposite the side of his medical bag. “Here you are, my boy. And I’ll take your old shirt off your hands...”

“For your leech wife?” Geoffrey challenges brazenly, emboldened and indiscreet with the oncoming high.

“For my—?” Doctor Swansea barks out a high and bright laugh, with an edge Geoffrey is hard-pressed to describe as anything but ‘slightly hysterical’. He looks more amused than offended when he corrects, “No, Geoffrey, for the fire. I’m afraid it’s unsalvageable. Provided you’re not emotionally attached to it...?”

Geoffrey looks at the filthy, dripping wad of cloth, considers the claw marks shredding the fabric—and hands it over.

“Good man,” Swansea praises, holding an unblemished corner of the blood-drenched shirt between his thumb and forefinger. “Join me in the sitting room when you’ve dressed—you ought to stay awake until your dizziness passes, so I’ve put the kettle on.”

And then the man departs again, leaving the hunters alone in the study.

Geoffrey turns an arch look on his mentor’s swarthy, mullish face, now well and truly amused. “Are you taking the piss?” Geoffrey demands through a delighted grin. “The great Carl Eldritch is afraid to talk shop with an English dandy in a smoking jacket? Over _tea?”_

“Mind your tongue, lad,” Carl snaps. Geoffrey decides he must be out of the woods at last, if Carl is comfortable enough to scold him like that. Given what a relief that is, and how the man’s over-caution feels unusually hilarious, Geoffrey can’t bring himself to feel chastened like he probably ought.

Geoffrey winces as he wrangles himself into Doctor Swansea’s spare shirt. It’s a snug fit, and trying to close it doesn’t do his wounded abdomen or his bruised ribs any favors. Geoffrey’s compromise between decency and comfort is letting the garment hang open, its sides fluttering around his waist. It’s surprisingly soft—not anything obscenely decadent, but it’s still nicer than anything Geoffrey owns.

He looks at the derby cane Doctor Swansea provided, and considers leaving it—he’s not an invalid—but his knee wobbles concerningly when he tries to put weight on it unassisted. He sighs and resigns himself to the cane, following Carl out of Doctor Swansea’s study.

—

There’s a tea tray in the sitting room.

Carl and Geoffrey may be a bit rough around the edges, but they’re not _animals,_ so they accept Doctor Swansea’s offer of tea in his dainty, porcelain cups on his flowery, delicate tea saucers. Carl looks downright miserable about it, but Geoffrey can’t bring himself to take exception to the situation. His wounds are dressed, his pain is all but gone, there’s a warm fire going, and he has a cup of hot tea in his hands.

Surely that’s worth the price of having a chinwag with a leech-lover?

And it’s good Earl Grey.

“So, tell me _everything,”_ Doctor Swansea gushes. “Spare no gruesome detail! I’m _dying_ to know how you got such a nasty wound and came out of it alive. Was it an Ekon?”

Geoffrey blinks. “How’d you figure?” he asks, genuinely curious.

Swansea preens. “Of the species of vampire which are known to prowl the streets of London, it is a simple process of elimination: a scratch like that from a Vulkod would have been larger, and the impact would have certainly broken more than a few ribs; Skal attacks tend to induce inflammation and putrefying wounds at a much higher rate; neither of these seems to be the case with your injury, and thus, an Ekon is the most likely culprit.”

Swansea sips his tea daintily in punctuation of his analysis, and Geoffrey reassesses the man in the high-backed chair. He sees now that Swansea is a bit of a windbag, and his enthusiasm might be considered grating by some. Carl seems to be having a harder time of it than Geoffrey: his knuckles whiten around the handle of his teacup like he’s battling the urge to throw it against the wall. The telltale vein of an incoming tirade throbs in Carl’s temple.

“Well-spotted, doc,” Geoffrey says graciously. “Got it in one.”

“I knew it at once!” Swansea crows, delighted. “Well? Don’t keep me in suspense, my boy!”

Geoffrey glances again at Carl, who looks about ready to blow a fuse. “Just to be clear, doc,” Geoffrey says, “would you mind telling me what your offer was? ‘Fraid Carl was a bit light on the details.”

Doctor Swansea deflates somewhat. “Oh, yes, I _suppose,”_ he says with a gusty sigh. “I informed Mister Eldritch that I would provide medical assistance to him and any of his—theoretical compatriots. That is, individuals who have had close encounters with vampires.” Swansea sets his tea aside and laces his fingers together primly in his lap, his brown eyes gleaming with an inner fire. “All I require in exchange is a detailed account of the event from the individual in question.”

“That’s all?” Geoffrey says dubiously. “And what d’you get out of this, doc?”

“The satisfaction of scientific inquiry, of course!” Swansea says. As improbable as it is as far as answers go, the man is so damn keen that Geoffrey finds it difficult to discredit. “Encounters with vampires are so _rare_ these days! Most people don’t survive them, and those that do are liable to dismiss their observations as delusion or hallucination. But professional vampire hunters... well!” Swansea leans forward as if he can barely contain his excitement. “I could hardly ask for a better source of information. Wouldn’t you say?”

“... S’pose not.” Geoffrey drinks his tea. “You a proper doctor, then?” He has his suspicions, but it pays to be sure.

Swansea preens again. “Yes, of course. I’m head surgeon at the Pembroke Hospital.”

Though the doctor’s enthusiasm for creatures he seems ill-prepared to face is frankly a little concerning, and more than a little odd, Geoffrey instinctively weighs the costs and benefits of a professional relationship with the man. Carl likely did the same, but judged the advantage of a West End surgeon negligible when he knows so many other sawbones in the city, and he evidently feels so strongly about the Brotherhood that he’d rather suffer grievous harm than a member of the Brotherhood’s company.

Geoffrey has long attuned himself to Carl’s own sense of a situation’s danger. It makes his fingers itch for a weapon to see his mentor thrumming with barely repressed violence. But logically speaking, he can’t actually see the harm in indulging the man’s enthusiasm.

“It’s been a long night,” Geoffrey hedges, because he’d like an opportunity to think this over when he’s not under the influence of narcotics. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to defer payment?”

Swansea’s smile goes hard-edged and cold, and Geoffrey begins to get an inkling of what has Carl so unnerved.

“I don’t have any objections on principle,” Swansea says slowly, “but that would put you two consultations in the red, considering that’s what Mister Eldritch asked last time.”

Geoffrey frowns at Carl, but the hard set of his mentor’s flinty eyes doesn’t give Geoffrey any indication that the man thinks he was wrong to avoid settling up with a leech-lover.

“I suppose there’s nothing I can do to stop you from simply leaving,” Swansea goes on with a pointed glance at Carl’s sword—gripped tightly in the hand that isn’t holding his teacup—and Geoffrey has to wonder if Carl only has it drawn because he intended to extort the man. “But if you do, I can make no guarantees of future hospitality.”

Maybe Carl’s principled hatred is simply blinding him to the dangers, but Geoffrey easily sees how this could go sour: Carl threatens the man whenever one of them is in the area and needs treatment, leaving Swansea’s curiosity unsated at swordpoint; Swansea grows bitter and resentful at being taken advantage of, and goes on to give them shoddy treatment, or worse, poison; and if the man _does_ have any leeches in his acquaintance, he wouldn’t even have to commit the deed himself. Any enterprising vampire would be glad to eliminate the leader of Priwen and his righthand man.

Swansea would only have to whisper the word in an opportunistic ear.

“I _do_ have work in the morning,” Swansea sulks, his sharp edges wilting with disappointment. “Not all of us can make a living as vigilantes, you know. And I’ll have to wash your blood off my desk... and the carpets... Really, I’ve gone to rather a lot of trouble on your behalf. Would it kill you to return the favor with a bit of conversation?”

No, Geoffrey thinks, it wouldn’t. Although with a glance at his mentor, Geoffrey reflects that it might actually kill Carl.

“Fine,” says Geoffrey. “I’ll settle up for both of us.”

Carl’s flinty eyes snap to Geoffrey, but he doesn’t roar in his face like Geoffrey very nearly expects. Was all his fuming and squirming because he thought Geoffrey would refuse just as he had? Was he raring up to carry Geoffrey out over one shoulder, Swansea’s ultimatum be damned, if Geoffrey should refuse?

Geoffrey tempers his indignation, but only just. The man still acted like a sawbone willing to work basically for free was some kind of curse straight from the pits of hell.

"Might take a while," Geoffrey says. "Got a place I can sleep when we're done having a natter?"

Swansea _glows._ “I have a guest room,” he says eagerly. Glancing between the two hunters he adds, correctly assuming it will sweeten the pot, “with a lock.”

“Fit for a king,” Geoffrey says with a grin. “Sounds like I’m in good hands, Carl. See you tomorrow.”

Carl scowls, but he sets down his teacup and stows his blade. He’s not going to lecture Geoffrey in front of Swansea, and he _does_ trust Geoffrey to make his own decisions most of the time. Insists on it, in fact—even when he’s sure Geoffrey is making a mistake. Best way for the lesson to stick, Carl says.

Also, Geoffrey’s holding out hope that Carl will forget about lecturing Geoffrey for his initial reckless mistake, if the man is forced to leave him in Swansea’s care for a day. Maybe the intervening hours will see fit to introduce Carl to the business end of a bottle, and he’ll have forgotten by tomorrow evening.

After the requisite threats are exchanged (“Yes, yes, not a hair on his head or you’ll string me up, I take your meaning Mister Eldritch, and good evening to you, sir,”) Swansea ushers Carl out the door and returns to the sitting room so hastily that his slippers slide on the hardwood floor.

Swansea fusses over the fire, and pours them more tea, and takes up Carl’s abandoned seat on the settee beside Geoffrey.

“Ready for your bedtime story, Doctor Swansea?” Geoffrey asks with dry amusement.

Swansea titters good-naturedly, playing with the pen and notepad he’s produced from—somewhere. “Remember, you’re settling up for two,” he reminds Geoffrey lightly.

“Right,” Geoffrey says, stifling a yawn. He sincerely doubts Swansea will let him forget, so he doesn’t bother committing it to memory.

“And please, call me Edgar.”

Geoffrey is sure it’s just the warm atmosphere—the rattling woodstove and the warm, fragrant tea and the pleasant haze of opiates—and Edgar’s scientific enthusiasm bleeding into everything he says and does... But the invitation feels like enticement, a low purr to convey the man’s consummate contentment with their current arrangement.

“Alright, Edgar.” Geoffrey leans back, making himself comfortable on the settee. “So Carl and I were following a lead on a string of murders,” he begins, and allows himself to bask in Edgar’s undivided attention as he recounts the evening’s events from start to finish.

Edgar is a surprisingly gratifying audience. Geoffrey doesn’t even have to embellish anything to get a rise out of the man—although after a few minutes of watching the man react, Geoffrey finds himself stringing Edgar along just for the fun of it; drawing out tension, creating dramatic pauses under the guise of gathering his thoughts or wetting his throat with drink—which Edgar is all too eager to keep flowing. The caffeine makes Geoffrey feel a little wired after the fight and the blood loss and the opiates, but it only makes Edgar’s single-minded focus all the more arresting, like a physical thing.

Edgar only ever interrupts the narrative to ask Geoffrey to slow down so he can finish writing some observation, or to ask a clarifying question about the vampire’s abilities, features, or demeanor. Everything else just eggs Geoffrey on: here a widening of Edgar’s brown eyes, there a soft, thrilled gasp, and all amid encouraging cries of “No!” and “What then?” and “Fascinating!”

Carl has taught Geoffrey well, but the man is fairly no-nonsense: strict as sin and set in his ways. Geoffrey has thought on more than one occasion that his mentor is something of a miserable curmudgeon. He’s grateful, sure. But Carl has never been a match for Geoffrey’s intellectual curiosity, which Geoffrey evidently shares with Edgar.

And while Geoffrey has perfectly sensible reasons for being a vampire hunter, he’s always thought he had a very glamorous job that afforded him an unfairly _unglamorous_ lifestyle. But like water to a man in the desert—like blood to a leech—Edgar’s rapt attention feeds Geoffrey’s private, neglected love of theatrics.

So, all told, it’s not a bad trade after all.

**Author's Note:**

> something something 42(4)0 words because geoffrey is high on opiates haha blaze it


End file.
